Now, even more scarily, the teachers responsible for those children are attacking the idea of knowing stuff. The National Union of Teachers has laid into a supposed "pub quiz" approach to teaching – by that, they mean teaching children to learn things.

Anne Swift, from the NUT's ruling executive, said she feared a curriculum that will mean “teaching children to learn facts by rote, with inspectors turning up to test the children’s knowledge of the continents, chronological order in history and the times tables".

Oh God, imagine the horror of it – children knowing what the world looks like and what order the most important events in history took place, and discovering how to add up. How wicked…

Another teacher produced the tired old line that the internet has replaced the need to know things: “We live in a digital era. Children do not need to be carriers of information any more. Everything is available on the internet at the click of a button."

Is it really a teacher – and, presumably, a university graduate – who can come up with such rubbish? What would you have thought of Archimedes, Shakespeare or Darwin, if they'd said, "Erm, I actually don't know anything – but I've got a huge library full of lots of books and stuff – I can look it all up in an instant." You wouldn't have called them resourceful – just stupid. Ditto, anyone now who knows nothing, but does have a decent wifi connection.

In the most horrifying, patronising statement, one teacher said that, thanks to the need to learn facts in the new curriculum, "creativity and enjoyment at school will be reduced, thus alienating young people and leading to more school absence".

Can you imagine a teacher at a good private school being allowed to say, we won't teach the children anything because then they'll play truant? No – and that's why private schools will go on outperforming state schools, as long as this wicked, mad, contrary kind of thought is allowed to flourish in the NUT.